Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

That's not Bobby Jindal's question. He doesn't seem to know what it is ("$140 million for something called volcano monitoring"), even though everyone says he's a supersmart policy wonk, but he thinks it's "wasteful spending."

If he had a question about why USGS didn't need that money, perhaps he should have gotten it answered before he went on TV in prime time and told the nation it was a waste.

eta: How odd: Less than a year ago, Jindal was in favor of federal spending to help Louisiana after Katrina. You could say he left a different impression last night.

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

Hair of the dog?

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I thought obama was going to announce that he has sold Air Force 1as a budget cut because he can flap those big ears and fly, and even if he gets tired on overseas trips the whole being able to walk on water thing will come in handy.

it's weird how you never talk about what he's doing, you just keep mentioning mistakes the Rs allegedly make in responding to what he says.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Surly. Been drinkin' at the office again?

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I didn't think anyone would care about volcano monitoring, but then Burger did. Odd, that. Why does Bobby Jindal want your home to be destroyed by rivers of molten lava? I don't know. Barack Obama doesn't want your home to be destroyed by rivers of molten lava. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter don't want your home to be destroyed by rivers of molten lava. That's a big shout-out for one Democrat and three, three, three Republicans. Happier?

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

I'm looking out for me. If the Gov. is going to devalue the dollar to finance their deficit spending, I am getting on the same bus.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

why monitor? they either happen or they don't, completely outside the control of man; like female orgasms.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I made an obama joke that no one could call racist, and I get no props:(

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

You and Sebby's positions relating to Ty are ridiculous. He need not outline what aspects of Obama's plan he's in agreement with. And when something is questionable, I think he does a good job asking questions about it, whether they be through links to someone who is looking at the whole issue or through his own responses.

If Jindal or any other Republican says something stupid, why shouldn't he take issue? Especially when he generally tends to disagree with the positions of the Republicans. Just because he doesn't agree with your political outlook (Hank-repub, Sebby-"centrist") doesn't mean he doesn't think about the issues he tackles on this board.

If either of you have a problem with his criticism, address what he said. But neither of you seem to want to do that. You either say something ridiculous (like above) or you accuse him of being overly lawyerly to prove a minute point to win an argument (something Sebby seems to see a lot when someone disagrees with him).

TM

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

How many people have been killed by lava in the United States in the last 25 years? And that does not include any idiots who tried to walk into the lava flows in Hawaii.

If you spent $140m on reducing the Canada Goose population in the vicinity of airports, I think you'd get better bang for your buck.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Some Keynesian YOU are. Anyone knows that (compared to the relatively placid duty of deterring or attacking Canadian geese) volcano monitoring carries a high turnover of workers because of the significant risk of painful death on the job. More jobs/workers per government dollar spent. Win-win.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

again, the first bullet proof obama joke and no mention:(

as to the "substance" of your post, we never posted about what the minority guy from where ever said when the Rs ran things. I'm in a weird position. I run a small business. i don't want to have to lay people off. I voted for Obama. I want him to do well for both those reasons.

i don't care to defend the Gov of La. I'm not sure anyone here does. but here is the thing, it sink or swim for the Dems. the Rs appeased their worst instincts when they held all the cards- we will see how the Dems do. I would find that a more interesting discussion than "some R congressman said a number with the wrong number of zeroes in it!" "so, Pelosi did the same!"

I thought you were the one who didn't want to allow stupid posting?

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

Dibs on Jon & Kate. I loves me the Korean fusion.

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

you've read the bill I'm sure. Any dental work allocated for those making over 500k?

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

Can't it be both?

"In Soviet Russia, highly leveraged lenders and manufacturers bankrupt YOU!"

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Ty's recurring point has been that the stimulus bill is meant to stimulate, and that the Republicans have seized on small parts of the stimulus bill that they don't like so that they can make it look like it's a giant pork project (while overlooking whether or not what they are criticizing actually stimulates the economy).

If you think you can sustain a conversation about whether or not the Democrats will succumb to their worst instincts when they're holding most (remember, you still have the Supreme Court) of the cards,* go ahead. But you'll have to discuss specifics at some point.

Your point seems to be, "But Ty is nitpicking about Jindal's formal Republican nitpicky response to the President!" And it really just makes you sound whiny.

TM

*And I think part of why Ty goes after these silly points is because implicit in the Republicans' criticisms is the argument that Democrats just couldn't wait for an excuse to spend spend spend and create the biggest government ever! And Ty has taken issue with that on general and specific levels.

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

I'm phoning it in so sell by date anymore that I almost tried to make a Yakov joke based upon you mention of Soviet Russia before I made my brain read it again.

Re: The center cannot hold.
 

No, but you'll be pleased to learn that volcano monitoring and the arts scene in Houston are fully funded for all income levels, and sleeping on park benches and under bridges is prohibited without means-testing.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

In this instance, the random R is the person the party picked to give the official party response, so this seems like an odd time to make this objection.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

your earlier post was the interesting question. I think everyone who is taxed at all looks at their paychecks and thinks "fuck", it's almost not worth going in. I remember my lower middle class* father saying each week "I shouldn't bother with the overtime." Point is, I think the reason poorer people vote against taxes is that they are wary that the "rich" might include them. they might suspect what you or i make and what we might pay, but they know what they pay, so taxes bug them.

with the erosion of the middle class perhaps that will fade.

*in income level only.
as to Ty, do you think he needs your help to fight his fights or defend his posts?

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

this soon after that election, he is a lamb to the slaughter.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

There may be something to that, although my experience is different than yours. I think that people are programmed with a lottery mentality and they think about issues as they affect them when they get rich. It's delusional, but everyone knows someone who got rich somehow, right?

Of course not. In fact, I think he kicks your ass regularly. I'm just trying to understand your thought process.

TM

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I so seldom actually intellectually engage here that Ty "kicking my ass" is like when you bragged about scoring ten points in the fourth quarter without mentioning that your team was down thirty and we had cleared our bench.

PS- semi-brag time: my son will play D-3 b-ball. Last night his team played the 4th ranked school in the country. Got their ass kicked. The point guard for them is mentioned as perhaps the best in the country.

Kid drives against sonny boy, goes up and my three inch shorter son blocks the shot. For a moment I'm on top of the world, like when this kid is in the NBA we can show the tape. Then the ball bounces off a guy's back, and goes straight back to superstar who is still in the air and catches and finishes. Bitch.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I didn't say he did. I'm the one who said Ty was blindly partisan and getting behind every progressive and left-leaning policy offered by Democrats.

But it's not just about Ty. It's about everyone here who plays the "GOP v. Dems" game.

It's about a rift that exists in this country where a lot of people have taken sides. From a behavioral perspective, near unconsciously, they reflexively support a progressive policy and rip into any conservative questioning it, and vice versa. I'm fiscally conservative and should loath this bailout. But I have a strong suspicion that without it, though a very imperfect plan, we would fall into a period of protracted economic malaise. I'd personally like to see a lot more bankruptcies so that innovators can grabs the scraps and reconstitute them into new companies, the way the system is supposed to work. But I know there's no political will to do so and that practically speaking, we can't let certain of these institutions fail. So I support the stimulus and see no reason to pick at the thing. As Obama said, it couldn't be made perfect. So you have me, a conservative, supporting something I ought to hate.

A lot of people on this board would NEVER, ever, under any circumstances credit Bush with having had a decent policy on anything. Their conspicuous absence of criticism for their side, coupled with a constant, petty criticisms of the other does not indicate people who just happen to agree with one side more than the other. To me, it indicates tribal thinking - people who have aligned themselves with an ideology and cheer along with it and support it even in its questionable policies. I think your assessment of the phenomenon is putting the chicken before the egg. And what I think is really twisted in the process is that the people doing it don't even realize they're doing it. It's like you and me being on different sides of a ping pong table. Just swatting at the ball, not thinking about anything but beating each other.

That you're well read and can marshal cites to support your positions doesn't automatically differentiate you from Joe the Plumber. If you "believe" in either party, I don't think you're approaching politics rationally.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

We've had this conversation, and a number of Dems here were willing to identify a couple of items where Bush had some decent policies (the one I particularly remember is immigration), but there wasn't a single R here who would stand up today for anything Bush had done.

But, I know, it's a nice debating point to yell "partisan hack" rather than rebutting a point.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

No he doesn't. I've watched him fight Hank and generally they draw.

There's no "ass kicking" that ever takes place here. Inevitably, one person outlasts the other by committing more to the debate - taking more time to bash out piles of information which, against an opponent working on the fly and unwilling to engage at such a level, appears to be a "win."

The other often used trope is to demand "proof" of general insights as though they were facts in the record. It's a cheap courtroom technique to get around circumstantial evidence, which by its nature always has to be delivered as a theory. Somebody used it on me today. I think I said that hedge funds were sure to be regulated just like banks and the response back was something like, "Show me one legislator who has said hedge funds must be regulated like banks." Well, of course I'm not going to be able to do that. No sensible legislator would say that out loud (save Dodd, who has political baggage to exorcise with the issue and Biden, who can't shut his mouth).

These aren't wins. They're the same crap techniques I get paid to use in Court every Friday. Every litigator who spends time in court learns how to use them. I have to argue a loser position tomorrow, and my entire approach to the other side's argument is going to be "She can't prove it. It's all conjecture!" I'm going to grab at a couple weak sentences in her papers where she went too far and try to make her emminently reasonable position look like a fishing expedition. Will I have won at the end of the day if the judge rules against her? I guess. But not really. I'll have just beat her in a debate. So what? What was resolved by that? What did anyone learn, but how to bullshit more.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

what's ironic is that if Obama does straighten my teeth my arguments will hold water better.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

This medium's too easy to manipulate. I'm going back to the FB permanently.

Come over here to write silly shit now and again. But nothing else.

I've wasted two days on what? Arguing nonsense with an echo chamber?

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

you and Burger need to stay, at least until slave comes back full time.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Make it worth my while. Start calling people out on playing the game. I have no interest in arguing any substance anymore. I just want to keep attacking technique.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Even if this were true, why do you assume that it is done blindly?

Who are these mythical people? I have said that I agreed with Bush on immigration, and in principle with him on social security privatization. And I was generally supportive of his administrations attempts to deal with the financial crisis (and I still think the original TARP proposal was more or less on the right track).

Clearly you aren't paying attention. Perhaps you remember when I was arguing against bailing out the automakers, and you were arguing in favor? Granted, the Bush adminstration went for it too, but saving the car companies is a Dem essential, and more money for them is entirely assured by the current powers that be.

God forbid anyone have fun by making fun of petty shit. I guess from now on we should be all serious all the time.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Do you ever talk to non-lawyers? Do they ever ask you why you believe what you believe? Are they just engaging in cheap courtroom techniques? There is nothing tricky about asking why any of us believes the crazy shit we do. Especially you.

And if you recall the incident you refer to (just a few hours ago), you provided some basis for what you were saying and further disussion ensued.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Eh, maybe you're right. I've been dealing with lawyers like crazy the past three weeks and already I'm angrier than fuck. I had some asshole on the phone this afternoon and I wanted to fucking drive to his office and smash the receiver off his face (which would take a while, it being hard plastic and all).

You know those times? When you need to snap through the system and say "Hey, you fucking asshole, stop dicking with me. I'll turn over every inch of my client's finances. See for yourself. No way you can collect. So take the fucking deal and how about - for the first time in the history of this profession in this shithole of a state you do what you're supposed to do, and instead of fucking your client over by filing a fruitless complaint so you can make a few hourly bucks on the case, you drag me north a few dollars in negotiations and we settle this like businessmen instead of a pair douchebags jousting in the world's most irritating game of chess? How about it, asshole? Or are you too fucking institutionalized and shit scared of getting fired not to milk the fuck out of your client on this one?"

They ought to let opposing counsel talk directly to the clients on the other side of the case. That'd get cases settled. "Hey, Joe. Yeah, do you know how good you could have done BEFORE discovery? But that asshole you hired - he told you needed to go through the process, right? Take a bunch of deps, right?"

What a fucking waste of everyone's time and intelligence.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

This is why I am happy that I don't actually litigate all that often.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I think it was Spanky who said -- "This is not a Policy Board, its a Politics Board."

[eta: I like to think that . . . ] I'm more inclined to care about policy than party myself -- although I do lean one way most of the time -- but coming onto this space to bitch about people being partisan is pretty damn silly.

S_A_M

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

I'm sorry. I need to call people out on technique? Who invented calling the Ty toadies out? Who invented questioning the use of blog cites? Hell i even forced Penske to leave. I'm the Wolf/cleaner of this board.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Sorry, Hank. It wasn't funny.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

Thanks for the reminder. But never fear, you are the universally acknowledged master of the techniques that so enrage Sebby.

Re: We will never agree on this and therefore it is pointless to talk about!
 

This is bullshit. Not necessarily as to your father, who I didn't know. But in general, folks who are living paycheck to paycheck are going to take the overtime. Some of them are going to take the second job.

Because they need the money. That extra $35/week? That's going to pay for a color tv, or maybe get socked away so the kid can go to college, or it'll go to Mom, who's having a harder time making it on a fixed income.

Or, perhaps it's going to pay off the doctor bill, so that the next time his wife's asthma starts acting up, they'll be able to to the doctor again. Or he can finally get the electric bill paid down, so he doesn't have to take a half-day off every month to go sit in the CERDA office and get a grant to help pay the utlilities.

You may have lived paycheck to paycheck somewhere back in the distant past, but it's clearly been a long time, because you have no idea what it's like. That's good. Mazel tov. But if you think that anybody who needs the money is going to turn down the chance to make more, even if he only takes home 80% of it, you're nuts. For that matter, if you are going to turn down another $50,000 a year because you're only going to bring home 60% of it, you're already making too much anyway, so shut the fuck up and pay the tax.